Is Wildcard Starter Pack worth buying right now?

Our current verdict is CAUTION (score 44/100). Cash-out EV is $23 on a $25 pack (-6.6% net after the ~91% buyback) — the average rip loses money.

What is the EV of Wildcard Starter Pack?

The calibrated EV is $25.76 against a pack price of $25.00, with a typical (median) pull of $22.10 across 314 indexed pulls.

What are the real odds of beating the pack price on Wildcard Starter Pack?

28.3% of indexed pulls met or beat the pack price, and 3.5% returned at least double the price. These are observed odds reconstructed from real pulls, not the posted odds.

What is the typical pull from Wildcard Starter Pack?

The median pull is $22.10 — half of all indexed rips returned less than that. The single best recorded pull is $89.30.

Pokémon

Wildcard Starter Pack

Wildcard Starter Pack is a $25 Courtyard Pokémon mystery pack with a calibrated expected value of $25.76, worth $23.34 at its observed 91% buyback — a cash-out ratio of 0.934x (1.030x at sticker FMV), so it currently returns less than its price on the average rip once the buyback haircut is taken. 28.3% of 314 indexed pulls met or beat the pack price. Rip Advisor verdict: CAUTION (44/100).

Ranked #17 of 129 tracked packs by cash-out ratio, #7 of 41 Pokémon packs.

Buy on Courtyard ↗Opens courtyard.io — PullValue is independent and earns nothing from purchases.

Cash-out ratio

0.934x

$23.34 back on a $25 pack, at this pack's observed 91% buyback. At sticker FMV it is 1.030x.

CAUTION-6.6% ROI

HIGH CONFIDENCE· 314 pulls · todaySIGNAL Weakening · 7.8 h ago

Calibrated EV: $26
Cash-out EV: $23
Pack price: $25
Typical pull: $22
Hit rate: 28.3%
Lifetime EV: $26
Pulls indexed: 314
Last pull: 7h ago

01 / Rip Advisor

Is Wildcard Starter Pack worth it right now?

score 44/100CAUTION

050100

Cash-out EV is $23 on a $25 pack (-6.6% net after the ~91% buyback) — the average rip loses money.
The typical pull (median) is $22 — most rips return less than the pack price; the EV is carried by rare chase cards.
EV is down 6.1% over 7 days — chase cards may be leaving the pool. Waiting for a restock can be smarter than ripping a drained pool.
28.3% of pulls meet or beat the pack price, across 314 indexed pulls.

Downside · bottom-quartile rip

−$7

1 in 4 rips returns ≤ $18 cash — covering 72% of the price.

Upside · top-decile rip

+$10

1 in 10 rips returns ≥ $35 cash. Both figures use the observed buyback ratio.

Log this decision:

Verdict is computed transparently from indexed pulls: cash-out ROI, median pull, 7-day trend, hit rate, and sample size. Redemption shipping (typically $16+) is not included — cards worth less than a few times the shipping cost are usually better instant-sold than shipped. Not financial advice.

02 / Pool signals

What's happening in the Wildcard Starter Pack pool

Lifecycle stage, health, and chase removals — read from indexed pulls, never guessed.

Recent pulls run 6% below the lifetime average — the observed pool is weakening.

DEPLETING

Recent pulls run 6% below the lifetime average — the observed pool is weakening.

Pro adds the Pool Health score and chase-removal impact.

Not observable: packs remaining, value remaining, and which chases are still in the pool — Courtyard publishes a pull feed, not inventory. We label those unavailable rather than estimate them. Everything above is computed from indexed pulls and EV snapshots; thin or stale data pulls the score toward neutral. Formula

Chase tracker

chase tier ≥ $125 · confidence 100%

No chase-tier pulls (≥ $125) observed in the last 30 days.

Removals are facts; what's left is not. Each row is a unique graded card observed leaving this pack, so it is no longer in the pool — though a card can return after a buyback, which is why re-listings are flagged. We show no “chance it remains”: Courtyard publishes pulls, not inventory, so that number would be guesswork. Formula

Signal lifetime

SIGNAL Weakening · 7.8 h ago

Pull flow has slowed past the usual gap of 5.5 h, so this read is ageing faster than the pack is producing evidence. At the observed pull rate, half the evidence behind this read is replaced in about 2 months.

Newest pull: 7.8 h; observed
Pull rate: 4.4/day; observed
Pulls, 7d: 31; observed
Half-life: Pro

Aged, not predicted. Half-life counts how fast new evidence arrives, measured from real pull timestamps — it is not a forecast of where EV is heading. We publish no EV-drift half-life because our snapshot history is too short and its early stretch is seeded placeholder data; a number regressed from that would describe our seed script, not the market. Note the headline EV is decay-weighted, so it reacts to new pulls sooner than this whole-sample horizon implies. Methodology

03 / Contents

What has come out of Wildcard Starter Pack

The eras, sets and cards this pack has actually produced. A record of past pulls — Courtyard publishes no inventory, so this is not a statement about what is left.

By era

Cards seen range from 1955 to 2026.

Current (2020+)66%$27 avg
Year not stated18%$21 avg
Vintage (pre-2000)8%$25 avg
Modern (2010-2019)7%$27 avg
Retro (2000-2009)2%$21 avg

Most common sets

Sets these pulls came from.

Pokémon M2a-Mega Dream EX3%$26 avg
Topps3%$21 avg
Panini Donruss2%$22 avg
Pokémon Japanese Sun & Moon Thunderclap Spark2%$24 avg
Pokémon Japanese Sword & Shield Rebellion Crash2%$20 avg
Upper Deck Dazzlers2%$23 avg
High Class Pack: Terastal Fest ex - sv8a2%$20 avg
Magic: The Gathering Innistrad: Double Feature - Draft Booster2%$19 avg

Cards seen most often

Named on 82% of readable pulls. The rest do not print a card number, and without one the card cannot be told apart from the set name.

Pikachu3%$25 avg
Trevor Zegras2%$23 avg
Cooper Flagg2%$26 avg
Caleb Williams1%$26 avg
Monkey D. Luffy1%$25 avg
Rayquaza1%$22 avg
Bulbasaur1%$23 avg
Ceruledge1%$22 avg

What comes out

Not every pull is a graded single.

Graded cards82%$27 avg
Sealed booster packs17%$21 avg
Graded comics1%$20 avg

Built from the 314 indexed pulls of this pack so far — a record of what has come out, not a promise about what is left.

04 / Floor safety

Wildcard Starter Pack floor safety & buyback reality

The two ways average EV lies to you — how top-heavy the pack is, and what FMV actually converts to in cash — then which exit pays most.

In Wildcard Starter Pack, the top 2% of pulls account for 6% of all pulled value — low dilution. Value is spread fairly evenly across the pool, so the average is close to what a typical rip returns. The observed instant-offer ratio is 91% of FMV, which is the cash number every verdict on this page already uses.

Floor safety

low dilution

6% of everything this pack has paid out came from just the top 2% of pulls. Value is spread broadly across pulls — the average EV is a fair picture of a typical rip.

Buyback reality

84.6% of FMV observed

Across offers we've indexed, a $100 FMV pull cashes out around $85 if you instant-sell — below the advertised ~90%, so FMV is not your exit price. Every number in our verdicts already uses this haircut.

Holding, listing, or physically redeeming can beat the instant offer — but redemption shipping (typically $16+) eats small wins.

Net exit value

309 paired pulls · 98% bid coverage · confidence 100%

Instant-selling a typical pull here returns $23.36 — $2.61 below sticker FMV (10.0% haircut). That figure is the average of bids we actually recorded, not an assumed 90%.

Pro compares all three exits side by side, with the redemption breakeven and the value-by-value haircut curve for this pack.

Bids are recorded, resale is not. Instant-buyback figures are real offers captured at index time and can move. Redemption shipping starts near $16 in the US, is higher internationally, and is charged per shipment — batching pulls lowers it. We publish no resale estimate, liquidity score, or time-to-sell, because no such data is available to us. How buyback works

05 / Observed odds

Wildcard Starter Pack odds — observed, not posted

Reconstructed from real pulls, so it reflects the pool as it drains — posted odds can't do that.

Across 314 indexed pulls, 28.3% returned at least the $25 pack price and 3.5% returned double or more; the single best recorded pull is $89.

Under $130.0%· stable
$13 – $2571.7%· stable
$25 – $50 · beats the pack24.8%· stable
$50 – $125 · big hit3.5%· stable
$125+ · chase0.0%· stable

Observed across 314 indexed pulls — what actually came out of this pack, independent of the posted odds. The 48h column shows tier drift: a falling green tier means the good cards are leaving the pool.

06 / Simulator

Wildcard Starter Pack rip simulator

What ripping 1–20 packs looks like, using this pack's actual pull distribution.

Packs to rip5Hoping for

Cost: $125
Expected cash-out: $117
Expected net: -$8
≥1 hit chance: 81.1%

Based on the observed distribution of 314 pulls and a 91% buyback. Averages describe many rips — any single rip can land anywhere on the distribution.

Monte Carlo · 10,000 trials

Packs5

P(profit) 28.0%

Mean net −$8

Cost $125

Worst 5%: −$32
Bottom quartile: −$24
Median: −$13
Top quartile: +$2
Best 5%: +$35

Bootstrap resampling of 314 observed pulls with the 91% cash-out applied. Assumes the pool doesn't change as you rip — for top-heavy packs the downside is understated once the grail leaves. Estimates, not financial advice.

07 / Big hits

Biggest Wildcard Starter Pack pulls

2020 Vivid Voltage #050/185 Raikou - Amazing Rare Holo (CGC 10 PRISTINE)

$89CGC 10 PRISTINE

2024 Pokémon Sv8a-Terastal Fest EX #224 Eevee EX - Holo Special Art Rare (PSA 10 GEM MINT)

$87PSA 10 GEM MINT

2025 Pokémon Simplified CBB3 C-Gem Pack Vol 3 #07 Mimikyu (PSA 10 GEM MINT)

$79PSA 10 GEM MINT

2019 Pokémon Sun & Moon Remix Bout #001 Venusaur & Snivy GX - Holo (PSA 10 GEM MINT)

$67PSA 10 GEM MINT

2023 Pokémon Sv2p-Snow Hazard #077 Baxcalibur - Art Rare (PSA 10 GEM MINT)

$62PSA 10 GEM MINT

2019 Pokémon Sun & Moon Tag Team GX All Stars #083 Lucario & Melmetal GX - Holo (PSA 10 GEM MINT)

$58PSA 10 GEM MINT

2024 Pokémon Sv5m-Cyber Judge #080 Metagross - Art Rare (PSA 10 GEM MINT)

$57PSA 10 GEM MINT

2026 Pokémon Asc EN-Ascended Heroes #231 Iono's Wattrel - Illustration Rare (PSA 10 GEM MINT)

$55PSA 10 GEM MINT

08 / EV history

Wildcard Starter Pack EV over time

Snapshot per scraper run. The dashed line is break-even — EV above it is +EV.

Calibrated EV currently sits at $25.76, above the $25 pack price, and has moved down 6.1% over the last 7 days.

1.030xEV ratio

09 / Quick answers

Wildcard Starter Pack — quick answers

Is Wildcard Starter Pack worth buying right now?: Our current verdict is CAUTION (score 44/100). Cash-out EV is $23 on a $25 pack (-6.6% net after the ~91% buyback) — the average rip loses money.
What is the EV of Wildcard Starter Pack?: The calibrated EV is $25.76 against a pack price of $25.00, with a typical (median) pull of $22.10 across 314 indexed pulls.
What are the real odds of beating the pack price on Wildcard Starter Pack?: 28.3% of indexed pulls met or beat the pack price, and 3.5% returned at least double the price. These are observed odds reconstructed from real pulls, not the posted odds.
What is the typical pull from Wildcard Starter Pack?: The median pull is $22.10 — half of all indexed rips returned less than that. The single best recorded pull is $89.30.

10 / Pull log